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Dr. Mitchell's Mideast Talking Cure
(Wall Street Journal) Josef Joffe - Israelis and Palestinians have been talking to each other ever since the fabled "Oslo Process" of 1993. They are negotiating face-to-face about all kinds of practical matters: roadblocks, investments, tax receipts. They are in constant contact about nabbing terrorists and training Palestinian security forces. So why the "proximity talks"? Under the leadership of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the West Bank is booming, while Hamas-ruled Gaza is sinking. Foreign funds are flowing in by the billions. Though nobody admits it, the Israeli army underwrites the life-insurance policy for the Fatah regime in Ramallah. Hence the Mitchell Minuet, a remake of the Baroque dance in which everybody circles, bows and returns to the original position. Israel and the Palestinian Authority are actually getting along quite nicely now that Yasser Arafat is dead and Fatah's mortal enemy is ruling Gaza - no broker required. At the Herzliya Conference in February, PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, in his impeccable double-breasted suit, delivered in his perfect English a speech Israelis had never before heard from a Palestinian leader. Essentially he told them: "We can do business with each other." The audience gave him a standing ovation - face-to-face. The writer is editor of Die Zeit in Hamburg and senior fellow at the Institute for International Studies at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.